3. Family

I had never before seen Alice wrong, but I thought I might be seeing it now. For the next two weeks, Bella and I barely spoke a word to each other. Sometimes she said hi, and for some reason my heart always started racing. Some days I would say hi, and comment dryly about the weather.

“Cold today, isn’t it?” I might say.

She would look at me with her big eyes and smile, which sent my heart into near palpitations and made me really wish I could see what was behind her curious grin. I wasn’t able to read her like I could read most people, and this annoyed me.

“Wet, too,” she smirked, before turning back to her work.

“Wet, yes. Well that’s to be expected since we do live in the rainiest city in the continental United States.” And then I would snap my mouth shut before I could babble on any longer because I was embarrassing myself and she probably thought I was a total moron.

My siblings thought it was hilarious.

“Did you see Edward today before fourth period?” Emmett announced grandly to the general public of our little cafeteria table.

“Nope.” Rosalie didn’t look up from the mirror in which she was trying to shape her already perfect eyebrows. “Why?”

Emmett waggled his own eyebrows at me and I snorted. “Eddykinz is in love, Rose,” he sighed blissfully.

“Isn’t that nice?” I sniffed.

Alice smirked. “And you were just about to tell me exactly why I was wrong, Edward. You really need to think about what you say before you say it.”

“Isn’t she uncanny?” Jasper pecked her lightly on the cheek.

“Is anyone actually going to tell me what Edward was doing?” Rosalie asked, snapping her compact mirror closed and dropping it into her makeup bag. “Or should I go find someone else to sit with?” She glanced over her shoulder and smiled at Mike Newton, who was very blatantly looking at her backside.

“I think I’d rather you stay.” Emmett wrapped a giant arm around her. “He was just being… um…”

“His normal charming self,” Jasper said, with so much sarcasm that I could practically feel it surrounding us. “Except he sort of lost his tongue when she bumped into him and asked how he was.”

“I said I was coming down with a cold,” I snapped. Here I was again, snapping for no reason at my siblings.

Rosalie smiled uncomfortably. “Wow. I guess she’s really getting to you, Edward.” Her words sounded a little strained – slightly pained. I saw a spark of something not so happy in her eyes.

“Rose –” Jasper extended a hand as a gesture of comfort, but she shied away from it.

“No, I’m fine. Really. If Edward wants to mooch over the school heartthrob, that’s none of my concern. Good for him.” I couldn’t help but to pick up on the venom in her voice, even though I wasn’t sure if anyone else heard it.

“Do you have to be so self-centered?” Alice asked good-naturedly. “I’m sorry he’s not mooning over you, since it’s obviously upsetting you so much.”

Emmett gagged on his drink. She glared at him.

“Not like that, Emmett. Grow a brain.”

I sighed, pinching the bridge of my nose. “Is anyone going to try to say anything productive about this, or am I supposed to just listen to you all bicker and help me absolutely none.”

“I guess you need to ask for help next time.” Jasper caught my eye behind Alice’s back, and I rolled my eyes.

“Okay, so what if I am asking for help?” I suggested. “Hypothetically, of course. I can’t even talk to her without making a fool of myself. As Emmett so kindly pointed out.”

“Whoa, Edward.” Emmett looked at me wide-eyed. “If you’d just come out and said that you wanted to talk to her without making a fool of yourself we could have avoided all this. What do you want to say?”

Dammit, why did I let myself talk to them? They were all utter morons sometimes.

“We are here for you, Edward,” Jasper said. “That’s what family is for.”

I smiled at him weakly. “I don’t really know what I’d like to say,” I said, choosing my words carefully. “I want to know more about her. I want to be at least on friendly terms with her. I mean, she seems to have accepted a few other friends, hasn’t she?” I nodded over to where she was sitting, surrounded by Tyler, Eric, and Jessica. All of whom were social climbers. And Bella was ignoring all of them politely, so it seemed like they had given up on conversation. “Albeit she doesn’t really look like she’s their friend, but still…”

“I had the very same problem when I met Rose,” Emmett declared, kissing her neck teasingly. She swatted him away.

I groaned, putting my head down on the table. “I don’t want to be some sort of charity CASE,, Alice…”

“I think she’s interested,” Jasper said suddenly.

I didn’t look up.”Who or what are you talking about, Jasper?”

“Isa – sorry, Bella. She doesn’t look interested in her lunch buddies, but she’s looking over this way.”

I hardly dared to breathe when I raised my head. I had assumed that she was staring off into space when I had looked at her last, unwilling to see where her eyes went, unwilling to be sucked into her strange, hypnotic beauty in front of my siblings. But sure enough, her eyes landed vaguely where my head was.

“Oh,” I managed.

Emmett grinned big. “Maybe we don’t have so much work to do after all. I wouldn’t say she looks like she’s madly in love yet, but she seems to be expressing some interest in your lovely blushing beauty, Edward.”

God no.

“Why don’t you just kill me now?” I muttered. I got up to throw my lunch away and left that cafeteria, wanting more to wander the grounds then to put up with them right now.